NZ Society endlessly shits on young people when they ram raid, and yet here we have young NZers engaging and demanding their rights as citizens and they still aren’t good enough for the National Party!
We hate young people in this country don’t we?
COP27 was an absolute joke failure highlighting how captured the adult political class have become to the polluters causing catastrophic climate change. Why shouldn’t the generations inheriting our failures vote and force politicians to listen to their environmental concerns?
Those who claim extending voting rights means we also extend commercial sex, nicotine and booze are arseholes.
Because we want to welcome young people into the universal franchise of democracy doesn’t mean we also want to expose them to commercial sex and addictive substances!
ACT want 16 year olds to be able to have the right to guns but not the right to vote?
This is how bastardised our definition of ‘freedom’ has become!
This howl that lowering the voting age makes it easier for the Left must also acknowledge that not capping the voting age at 75 makes it easier for the Right!
For every 16 year old deemed not nature enough to vote, I can find you 3 over 75s who have far more fucked up views on voting!
This country loves to hate on young people which is why we need to cap the voting age at 75!
75 year olds don’t care about catastrophic weather in 10 years because most will be dead by then. They are voting to keep their post war privilege while dooming the next generation to deal with the legacy of their pollution they don’t want to be responsible for.
Sure it’s complex, but the greed of the oil companies who knew their product was causing the very climate events we are seeing means they are responsible for our addiction to their product.
Let’s take those oil profits as damages and use that money to invest in new technology and sustainable energy rather than allowing these crooks to continue their plunder.
Trying to allow the pimps off the hook for selling their energy addiction is the philosophy of quislings.
Acquiescence to the corporate oil elites who are polluting our planet is not a solution and the enormity of climate change will sweep such concerns of complexity aside in the fury of the mob at the ballot box.
This will be the wrath of having no grapes.
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Rolling out such technology quickly would mean actually having a productive, modern, advanced industrialised economy.
In other words, you’re talking about smashing the corporate donors responsible for globalisation, and telling the Americans to go pound sand.
Which would mean throwing every single political party out of office, since none of them support any of that.
And crushing the press barons and broadcasting moguls, who would lie endlessly until such a movement was defeated.
Then you’d have to beat all the U.S. funded NGOs, who would probably try to start a Color Revolution, directed from Langley.
All of this has been done before, but don’t expect it to happen without millions of angry people raging on the streets.
Agree
It’s not so much that the political class hates young people, more that they don’t care about them.
The political class is focused on the wants and desires of the elderly – because that age group are reliable voters and consistently vote for their wallets. The young don’t vote that way, and often don’t bother to vote – so who are you more likely to buy off with policy and funding?
Fiscally speaking, the purpose of a working age person is to go out to work, and pay income taxes to support providing NZ Superannuation and free health care…
The “ elderly “ in most cases, care for the future of their children and grandchildren.
To infer otherwise is simply incorrect.
‘Care’ perhaps but not actually enough to want new housing to be built in their suburb, or to let the Superannuation age rise to match their longer lifespans.
Ada your points are valid and I accept that.
If they really cared they wouldnt claim the national superannuation if theyre still working and earning given its their children and grandchildren working to pay the super bill
According to this simplistic “solution” David Attenborough should have lost his right to vote 21 years ago.
As a boomer I would say we need to be able to vote otherwise we would see even worse aged care .,super would not move and
all our rights would be removed as our vote could not be swayed by political bribery at election time.
I think it is a good move that 16 year old can vote in local elections as a step to getting the vote in national elections
“75 year olds don’t care about catastrophic weather in 10 years because most will be dead by then. They are voting to keep their post war privilege while dooming the next generation to deal with the legacy of their pollution they don’t want to be responsible for.”
I usually find what you say sensible, and interesting but in this instance I am moved to make the comment. What a dick.
and no young person has anything made in china huh james
Why is it the rest of us are getting means tested for everything we want yet boomers can have jobs, assets, dividends, property and cash and still get a pension?
I guess Boomers are smart.
This comes up every so often but Super is a right for everyone who reach 65 . In France it has just moves from 62 to 64.
In Australia it is means tested but it has been shown it is so complicated it costs as much as it saves and at the moment they have waved the amount you can earn as they are so short of workers .
Because Boomers are the biggest voting bloc, and they are reliable voters – they vote, and they vote for their wallets.
The voting age used to come with reaching the Age of Majority – should it be reduced to 16 as well?
Children don’t have the mental maturity to make political decisions. We don’t even let them drive at that age!
I don’t think people should get the vote until they’re free-standing adults, earning their way in life and paying tax. The American revolutionaries said, “No taxation without representation”. Well I would turn that around to say “No representation without taxation.”
You can get a driver’s license at 16. Do you live on planet earth?
I think Andrew lacks maturity and I gather he’s over 16.
Good on you Trevor, I agree.
ageist clap trap…tell it to the homeless pensioner in a sleeping bag on any high street in the land…
g’wan darezya.
the problem is those complaining about boomers are the pampered sons and daughters of theose boomers/yuppies who are now whining because the bank of mum and dad isn’t open anymore
And you know this how?
so you contend there are no homeless pensioners ada
or that the current generation were not spoilt rotton by their parents
No, I was asking how you know those complaining about boomers are all spoilt children annoyed ‘the bank of mum and dad’ is closed, AND those are the only people complaining?
As for the homeless – which I wasn’t responding to – isn’t that more related to severe mental health and addiction issues, rather than being over 65?
proof of the mental illness comment ada….I grant it’s convenient for you but any substance….just holding you to the standard you demand of others.
is your contention oh they’re mental screw ’em?
I complain about boomers because I sit here unsupported with a disability that prevents me from working, Im being supported by my wife. If we were to split her income in half both of us are then earning below the minimum wage each.
Boomers keep telling us they have a super fund and they’re entitled to it.
Labour announced increases to benefits where most of that money is going to pay superannuation!
well it’s the govts job to increase disability benefits…you are bitching about the wrong people
I’m all for letting 16 year olds vote but the left needs to cease with this pathetic generational warfare shit, we are about rich vs poor, period.
It’s actually really disgusting seeing the left talk about old people as if they are all right wing slum lords hoarding the wealth, there’s a shit load of boomers so if it were true, 10% of this country wouldn’t have more wealth than the bottom 60%.
You’re not going to win 51% by attacking granny. Most of the boomers I know are living week to week and are more economically progressive than most millennials and gen z’ers I know who are more interested in identity politics than economics. Most boomers suffered through neoliberal reforms as much as anyone, the idea that they all benefited from them is nonsense and ignores class.
Rich people have rich kids and rich grandkids.
And if we’re going to play generational warfare gen z are not going to be the saviors of the left, if every generation is a rebellion against the prior generation, then gen z are the new boomers, hell gen z sound a lot like boomers and the new left did in the 60s, and their obsession with identity over economic policy screams neoliberal! If you think generations define voters, Good luck with gen z.
Millennials and Gen z and much of gen x have no idea what NZ was like before it became a user pay neoliberal fever dream no idea how to change it back, boomers remember, many fondly a time when NZ was a different place, based off gen x and gen y’s track record in govt their lack of knowledge about what NZ was life before Ruth and Roger has made them unable to imagine anything different than what NZ is like now
if younger generations think older generations don’t care about their kids and grand kids futures, have no wisdom or guidance to offer us and are going to reject class based off identity and generational warfare then bugger the left.
Generational warfare is identity politics at it’s worst. The poor and middle Fighting amongst ourselves while the rich screw us over.
Only broad coalitions based on class, aspirations for a better nz win elections.
Seconded.
Im Gen X, I got to see all the things that benefited boomers get ripped up and made user pays.
Boomers keep harping on about some superannuation fund but realistically its all just in a name considering most of the taxation now heading towards benefits heads in the super direction.
The difference is the rest of us are being means tested to get access to anything while boomers can have shares, assets, dividends, property and cash.
I know some boomers have nothing and live just as poorly as the rest of us but the rules are there treating boomers differently to everyone else. If we want fairness, the rules need to be applied equally.
I’m a boomer Mark and I’m comfortably off and most likely don’t need all the superannuation I get so some means testing is ok by me. The problem with means testing is its expensive to administrate, a bit like CGT(which I have already paid in the form of death duties on land 45yrs ago). Where a lot of the benefit is lost in the administration. Your personal gripe shouldn’t be with boomers who have contributed to Superannuation all their working lives, but with disability benefits that don’t give you enough money to live on. I have know problem with cutting down super payments to those with many assets and large bank accounts. The problem is growing numbers of boomers, not whether they are greedy or not. Don’t blame them.
The income my wife earns means MSD wont even look at me, so I have had to resort to growing a garden from a wheelchair in excruciating pain just to try make ends meet, I even have to mow my own lawns, there is zero help available. All I want is a bit of balance, cant treat boomers differently to the disabled surely, both are in a similar position.
Well said Corey.
Rest home voters and boomers get NZ First over 5%. So have to stay. Winnie would be doomed if they weren’t allowed to vote. Then there would be no hand brake to control Labour or ACT.
This will be the wrath of having no grapes.
Sour grapes acshually.
What is needed is meetings round the country with the oldies to see how they can support the country in some way as volunteers once they get benefits as mature people. A few hours a week or with part-time paid work where it is needed but not taking others’ jobs who need them.
The present idea of swanning around and dipping into benefits and being either self-centred
or doing some light pleasant work for sociability like op-shop serving, which is common for the older group has been insupportable for some time. We are not now a welfare society, but even that idea of looking after ageing people as if they were helpless children was stupid. Pulling together, everyone entitled to good basic help, but committed to supporting the country and community that supports you should have been the idea.
But instead we were in NZ filled with that idealistic fervour that shows up as expecting to have free housing provided and no return kindness expected. Helping with people’s kids reading; showing people how to use tools; two small not labour-intensive tasks that could be done and would be so helpful.
Another, coaching children’s sports is a hard job that isn’t appreciated by the parents often, taken for granted, but then you are doing it for the kids primarily. It would end up being taken for granted getting help like this, but the oldies don’t have to grovel for help and those they returned the compliment to should not either. Though thank yous and get-togethers for volunteers would give comradeship and enjoyment as well as gratitude. All oiling the wheels of state while there still are some. We’ll do it because it is right and satisfying to be building capacity in community.
Love ya words Corey…in a nutshell!
Slow news day Mart? Stirring again, nothing like a bit of culture war to fire everybody up!